Merry Christmas to Me!

After a day looking through
literature at the university.

I’ve spent the past three days at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in Monterrey meeting professors who work with agaves or bats, collecting literature on agaves, and doing a training course for Geographic Information Systems (GIS), led by Josefo. I spent two days in the Department of Ecology looking through the many books, magazines, and theses that Dr. Glafiro José Alanís Flores and Dr. Marcela González Álvarez have in their offices to find literature about agaves. Dr. Flores is an ethnobotanist who studies the sustainable management of plant communities, the uses of plants by people in arid and semi-arid areas, and urban forestry. Dr. Álvarez is a botanist who studies the agaves of northeast Mexico. When Josefo and I visited the university last week they graciously welcomed me to Mexico and the university and were very open to a collaboration with me and UGA. They offered access to their offices to look through their materials, desk space in the lab to work as I read through things, and access to the copy machine. Dr. Álvarez even gave me a gift of a book she and Dr. Flores co-authored on the uses of agaves in Nuevo León. It felt like Christmas! Most of the materials I have found are in Spanish, but I can read Spanish fairly well. However, I made sure to make lots of copies (well, photos to turn into PDFs) so that I can fully read and digest them later. 

I found so much good information! I learned that agaves are the only plants in Mexico that people use in their entirety, including the leaves (for fiber, rope, clothing, material to build houses, and fodder for livestock), the stalk (which is grilled for food), the sugar/sap (which is consumed as agua miel or the fermented pulque, or turned into mezcal or tequila), the spines (for needles), and the roots
and flowers (for food). Agaves are also used medicinally by rural communities, and they are vitally important for natural ecosystems since they provide food and shelter for so many other species. In addition, they can be planted to help prevent soil erosion. Agaves are so fascinating, and when you add bats and people to the equation it’s a system ripe for study.

Two different agave species outside the school
(Left: Agave salmiana, Right: A. tequilana (the only
species from which tequila can legally be made)).

Agave leaves used as siding for a house.
(from http://saboreartentusiasma.blogspot.mx
/2010/10/maguey-y-pulque.html)

A purse made from agave fibers.
(from http://www.sinembargo.mx/10-12-2011/91854)

Agua miel ("honey water") collecting in a hole
dug into the heart of the agave.

The fermented pulque from the sap of the agave.
(from http://losmitoteros.com/noticias-curiosas/
tercer-festival-pulque-de-mis-amores)

The flowers of agaves are edible.
(from https://rainydaypath.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/%C
2%BFcomo-preparar-flores-de-calabaza-y-flores-de-maguey/)

While at the university I found out that the girl who took me to the university the past two days, Silvana, is currently working on a project with agaves (commonly called los magueyes) in a nearby municipality, Mina. This is the place we hope to visit to take agave population counts. She’s looking at how the community use the agaves, for example for mezcal and for their fibers. She will be conducting interviews with community members in July, and I’m really excited to hear what she finds since I’m interested in doing something similar for my own work.

Today I also talked with Dr. Ricardo Canales, who told me that he has a friend who owns a ranch near Saltillo, Coahuila (about an hour from here) and who is interested in incorporating bats into his agave management strategies. I think Josefo and I are going to try to arrange a meeting with him while I’m here to look into the possibility of working with him.

I’m so grateful for the opportunities I’m having here to learn, make connections, and pursue potential avenues for my research. I’ve only been here three weeks and I have already been exposed to so much! I’m getting more and more excited to see where this all takes me!